Woman Who Developed Rash 2 Weeks After Beach Vacation Discovers A Parasitic Worm Under Her Skin

• Woman, 45, developed a rash once she got home to the US from the Caribbean
• She sought help when the rash started to move, leaving lines on her knee
• Doctors found a parasitic worm buried under her skin - but a type that normally only infects dogs

A woman was left horrified after a seemingly innocuous rash on her knee turned out to be a parasitic worm buried under her skin.

The 45-year-old had been in perfect health when she returned home to Pennsylvania after a beach vacation in the Caribbean.

But two weeks later, a series of thin, raised and itchy mounds began to appear on her leg.

She tried to ignore it but eventually consulted her doctor.

Whisked to an emergency department, the medics said they knew exactly what it was: a classic case of a parasitic infection known as cutaneous larva migrans.

But the source of it was extremely rare: it came from a kind of worm species that normally only infects dogs or cats.

Now the woman, who has not been named, is the subject of a new medical study, published in The Journal of Emergency Medicine.

She has since been treated with an anti-parasitic drug and is recovering.

Cutaneous larva migrans infections are not unheard of in humans.

However, it is normally caused be a hookworm

In this case, the source of the infection was unusual: either Ancylostoma braziliense or Ancylostoma caninum, worms which only infect animals.

Typically, hookworms, which thrive in warm climates, bury themselves into the human's skin and make their way to the large intestine.

There, they lay their eggs, then pass out of the body in the human's stool.

But humans are not a natural host for Ancylostoma braziliense or Ancylostoma caninum, and the worms can get lost in the body.

They stay under the skin, trying to find their way.

The thin lines, they explain, showed where the worm had been weaving around her leg as it got closer to the surface of her skin.

The rash is a reaction as the immune system tries to attack the parasite.




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